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Blue Water Vaccines Announces Transaction for Universal Influenza Vaccine with Oxford University

NEW YORK, Jan. 10, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Blue Water Vaccines, Inc., a privately held company, announced today that the company has entered into an option agreement with the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom providing Blue Water Vaccines the option to exclusively license a novel and potentially revolutionary universal influenza vaccine. Blue Water Vaccines will complete its fund-raising of US$15M to support the flu vaccine program.

Developed by scientists at Oxford University and published in Nature Communications in 2018, the vaccine protects against all influenza strains by targeting parts of the virus that induce a protective immune response but are also limited in variability. The technology has the potential of providing life-long immunity against flu.

Influenza is a major respiratory pathogen. It is estimated that there are over almost 500,000 deaths a year caused by influenza. The current influenza vaccines have serious shortcomings since it has to be administered yearly and typically provides protection to only 50% of the individuals who receive it.

"About 10 years ago, we predicted that regions of the virus that were limited in variability would drive the evolution of influenza. Using mathematical models, we showed that these regions would cycle between a limited number of conformations in time, in tandem with the development of immunity within the human population. Due to their limited variability and the ease with which immunity can be built up against them, such regions make ideal vaccine targets," said Sunetra Gupta, Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford.

"These regions have been recently identified and shown by our lab to dictate immunity to influenza in various age groups of humans. Astonishingly, laboratory assays used to detect antibodies showed that young children aged 6 to 12 had immunity to historical influenza strains that they could never have possibly experienced, one of which that last circulated in 1934!" added Craig Thompson, Postdoctoral Research Scientist in Virology at the University of Oxford.

"This paradigm shifting technology has the potential to save the lives of millions of patients around the world who fall victim to influenza infections. We look forward to working and supporting the amazing team at Oxford to bring this technology to patients around the world," said Joseph Hernandez, Executive Chairman of Blue Water Vaccines. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Blue Water Vaccines Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, regarding the research, development and commercialization of pharmaceutical products. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including factors that could delay, divert or change any of them, and could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from current expectations. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Forward-looking statements in the press release should be evaluated together with the many uncertainties that affect Blue Water Vaccines' business and Blue Water Vaccine undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.